So are debit cards. My wife had hers stolen and there was about $1000 in charges. We had the money back in the account in a couple of days.
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11 years ago
OT - Gas Prices. Now I have to carry cash.
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11 years ago
The gas station owner rarely owns the gas in the ground. He's told what to charge and, yes, he does make all his money on the overpriced crap inside.
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11 years ago
Most of the money isn't made at the gas pumps anyway, it made at the convenience shop. Get a certain number of people in because of the "deal" on gas and they spend more inside. Especially since you HAVE to come inside to pay.
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11 years ago
There's too much of a paper trail with gasoline for that to work, but for other businesses it's the big incentive to encourage cash over credit.
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11 years ago
Are you positive about that? I threw away the offer I got from them, because when I read the fine print, it said that you would only get that rebate at "gas only" stations - places that had no mini-mart attached. Which is to say, only the very highest-priced places. I'm not even sure where I'd look these days to find a gas station that didn't have a mini-mart.
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11 years ago
I wonder how true that is these days. The stores rely on computers, too. I think most stores wouldn't be able to sell you anything if the power or the network went down. A sole proprietor could, by switching to the cigar box cash register system, but how many of those are left?
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11 years ago
There's no paper trail, really? IRS and state revenuers have ways of estimating sales based on information they receive from third parties during an investigation, such as electricity usage. In the case of a gas station, they'll check if the station owner's record of supplied gasoline matches his supplier's records. It's easy to assess under-deposited excise taxes, like state and federal motor fuel taxes and state sales tax.
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11 years ago
I never understood why a convenience store would want you to pay at the pump. Once inside, you may grab a soda, coffee, etc. The place I get most of my gas for the past 10 years I've never gone inside at all. Never spent and extra dime.
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11 years ago
But that cup of coffee you grab can be veeeeerrrry profitable.
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11 years ago
Hmm. My two debit cards have exactly the same protection as a credit card.
Your experience may vary.
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11 years ago
Not any more.
"The agreement, which provides for a temporary reduction in rates for merchants and allows them to impose surcharges on customer purchases, follows a seven-year legal battle with U.S. retailers that accused the two largest payment networks of conspiring with banks to fix swipe fees, or interchange."
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11 years ago
I'm not SMS and I don't have any AMEX cards--- but I've never seen a restriction on any of my chase Visa's or the 2 Discover cards that I've played the %-back game with for years and years. [not as good as it was 5 years ago-- but still worth a couple hundred a year]
Jim
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11 years ago
Especially since 99% of the stuff in the convenience store qualifies as an impulse purchase. I buy something extra just about every time I go to the gas station. Lottery tickets (g).
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11 years ago
card and get the cash discount. Around here it's 10 cents a gallon, cash or debit.
It used to be but they recently passed new regulations which allow that.
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11 years ago
Businesses know there is a normal distribution of customers and will sell to all of them. Some folks just want gas and some will buy that $3 bottle of water. They already have the sunk cost of the pumps/tanks/equipment plus other expenses. So your money is just as good even if you only buy fuel.
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11 years ago
I'm guilty of buying gas long before I need it, to justify that lottery ticket.
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11 years ago
Some folks are pretty naive. In my state the state revenue folks are the most aggressive but all they need to do is say subpoena the supplier records and estimate sales and if they can't get records for some reason they will do stuff like watch the business operation and estimate sales. Then they demand the money. If you were playing games you have no leg to stand on.
Especially in the case of gas or other taxable liquid fuels you would have to be a total moron to play games because all wholesale transactions are completely documented.
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11 years ago
Storekeepers aren't clueless. A friends family owns a number of stores whose brand you would immediately recognize. A few weeks back the main organization did a software upgrade which broke all of the POS systems in the stores.
I saw this in action. They had boxes of hand written receipts under the counters ready to go. Anyone who had cash was able to buy stuff.
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11 years ago
Good to know. I think I'll ask my usual stores whether they're so equipped.
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11 years ago
The difference is in the avalanche of other problems that debit card fraud can cause. If your accounts are zeroed out for a few days, all sorts of bad things can happen. If your debt is bumped up for a few days, who cares?
FOr that reason alone, I never use a debit card on the Internet or where the physical plastic leaves my hand (restaurant, etc.).